Vytautas Landsbergis

May 26, 1991 | Robert Scheer, Robert Scheer is a national correspondent for The Times

It is amateur time in Eastern Europe, and Vytautas Landsbergis, the 58-year-old puckish president of Lithuania, is no exception. His area of expertise is not administrative law but the music of turn-of-the-century Lithuanian composer Mikalojus Ciurlionis, and he has said that he is not happy in the corridors of power unless there is a piano nearby.

Lithuania's independence hero, Vytautas Z. Landsbergis, looked set today to avenge a bitter defeat four years ago by former Communists as early results from parliamentary elections put his Homeland Union party out front. With 48 of the 2,037 electoral districts counted, the Homeland Union had 26% percent of the vote, the Christian Democrats 17% and the Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party of ex-Communists 13%.

Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis' lifestyle is an allegory for politics here. Protected by sandbags and men with revolvers, he lives holed up in his third-floor office, afraid to go into the street for fear he might be shot or abducted. Yet in his mind, Landsbergis is a free man.

Lithuanians dealt a serious blow over the weekend to Vytautas Landsbergis, the music-historian-turned-politician who led the Baltic state back to full independence, by refusing full approval to the strong presidency he had proposed.

Two U.S. diplomats ordered by the Soviet government to leave Lithuania met for 35 minutes early today with the Baltic republic's president after learning of their expulsion order. The audience with Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis was an apparent show of support by the leader of the republic. The consuls, Jon Purnell of Norwood, Mass., and Douglas Wake of Niagara Falls, learned of the decision to expel them in a phone call from the consulate in Leningrad, where they are based.

A look at the heads of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia: LITHUANIA Vytautas Landsbergis, 58, a former music professor, was the first non-Communist elected to head a Soviet republic. Upon his election in March, 1990, he immediately rammed through a declaration of independence and withstood the Kremlin's wrath when it cut off oil supplies for a time and sent soldiers and police on a rampage through the republic.

Lithuania's president said Tuesday that Moscow will try to bring his rebellious republic to its knees this winter by cutting off all supplies of food and raw materials. President Vytautas Landsbergis told a news conference here that Soviet officials have informed his government that food, fodder, energy and material shipments to Lithuania will end Jan. 1, ostensibly because of shortages in the Soviet Union.

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev rejected a package of compromise proposals handed to him Tuesday by Lithuania's leader, saying it did not go far enough toward meeting the demands he has set for opening talks with the breakaway Baltic republic.

Lithuania's independence hero, Vytautas Z. Landsbergis, looked set today to avenge a bitter defeat four years ago by former Communists as early results from parliamentary elections put his Homeland Union party out front. With 48 of the 2,037 electoral districts counted, the Homeland Union had 26% percent of the vote, the Christian Democrats 17% and the Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party of ex-Communists 13%.

April 18, 1990 | JOHN-THOR DAHLBURG and ESTHER SCHRADER, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Lithuanian leaders said the Kremlin made good Tuesday on its threat to throttle their economy by ordering drastic cutbacks in natural gas deliveries and a halt in oil supplies for the breakaway Baltic republic's sole refinery. Lithuania's leader, Vytautas Landsbergis, accused Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev of "brutal" action to break his homeland's drive for independence from Moscow, but he said the energy cuts would not have that effect.

A look at the heads of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia: LITHUANIA Vytautas Landsbergis, 58, a former music professor, was the first non-Communist elected to head a Soviet republic. Upon his election in March, 1990, he immediately rammed through a declaration of independence and withstood the Kremlin's wrath when it cut off oil supplies for a time and sent soldiers and police on a rampage through the republic.

May 26, 1991 | Robert Scheer, Robert Scheer is a national correspondent for The Times

It is amateur time in Eastern Europe, and Vytautas Landsbergis, the 58-year-old puckish president of Lithuania, is no exception. His area of expertise is not administrative law but the music of turn-of-the-century Lithuanian composer Mikalojus Ciurlionis, and he has said that he is not happy in the corridors of power unless there is a piano nearby.

On a mission to regain America's attention, Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis said Thursday that Soviet troops still occupy the television stations in his tiny Baltic Republic and that Lithuanians struggling for independence are living every day under the threat of military invasion.

Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis' lifestyle is an allegory for politics here. Protected by sandbags and men with revolvers, he lives holed up in his third-floor office, afraid to go into the street for fear he might be shot or abducted. Yet in his mind, Landsbergis is a free man.

Boosted by a landslide victory at the polls, Lithuania's president on Monday called on the United States to warn Moscow to keep its hands off Lithuania in the future. Vytautas Landsbergis also disclosed that it was President Bush who, during their White House meeting last December, suggested the holding of a republic-wide vote akin to last Saturday's referendum "as a way of expressing the nation's will."

Once again, Lithuania is the Baltic mouse that roared. But, also again, its problem will be finding a way to make Moscow listen. Lithuanian political leaders were certain of success in this weekend's plebiscite, but the scale of their triumph--more than 90% of those who voted favored independence from the Soviet Union--still staggered them a day later. It was "a victory against lies, against attempts to scare us, against fear," President Vytautas Landsbergis said.

Lithuanians dealt a serious blow over the weekend to Vytautas Landsbergis, the music-historian-turned-politician who led the Baltic state back to full independence, by refusing full approval to the strong presidency he had proposed.

Once again, Lithuania is the Baltic mouse that roared. But, also again, its problem will be finding a way to make Moscow listen. Lithuanian political leaders were certain of success in this weekend's plebiscite, but the scale of their triumph--more than 90% of those who voted favored independence from the Soviet Union--still staggered them a day later. It was "a victory against lies, against attempts to scare us, against fear," President Vytautas Landsbergis said.

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has rejected it as a meaningless exercise, but Lithuania's leaders expect today to deliver uncontestable proof of their people's desire for a complete break with Moscow. Starting at 7 a.m., residents of this Baltic land will be able to go to the place where they normally vote and pick up a slip of paper that asks: "Do you approve of the Lithuanian state being an independent democratic republic?" By crossing out the word "No," Lithuania's 2.

After the blitz attacks by the Soviet army that caused great carnage and shocked the world, the Lithuanian government reached an agreement with military commanders late Sunday to avert more bloodshed, and the thousands of Lithuanian nationalists forming a human wall to protect their Parliament began to disperse.